Uwe Rosenberg is a German game designer. He has become known mainly for his card game Bohnanza. He also designed Agricola, a game that dethroned Puerto Rico as the highest rated game on BoardGameGeek.com. Rosenberg is well known for the development of innovative card game mechanisms. Another main point of his work are the research-intensive games, that have peculiar historical events as their theme, and games that deal with clichés about men and women. Since 2005, he focusses on complex building games with an economic theme.
In Agricola, you're a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you'll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood, or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats? The game supports many levels of complexity, mainly through the use (or non-use) of two of its main types of cards, Minor Improvements and Occupations.
Agricola is a turn-based game. There are 14 game rounds occurring in 6 stages, with a Harvest at the end of each stage. Each player starts with two playing tokens (farmer and spouse) and thus can take two turns, or actions, per round. There are multiple options, and while the game progresses, you'll have more and more: first thing in a round, a new action card is flipped over. Problem: Each action can be taken by only one player each round, so it's important to do some things with high preference. Each player also starts with a hand of 7 Occupation cards and 7 Minor Improvement cards that he/she may use during the game if they fit in his/her strategy. Speaking of which, there are countless strategies, some depending on your card hand. Sometimes it's a good choice to stay on course, and sometimes it is better to react to your opponents' actions.
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A challenging yet strategic economic game - Agricola